gTLDs *are* going to make the Internet less safe

The introduction of thousands of new Internet extensions in the next year is going to make the Internet less secure if a new report is anything to go by.

The “namespace quality index” produced by domain consultants Architelos is the first time a comprehensive review of abuse of the domain name system has been undertaken. It makes for interesting, and worrying, reading.

The aim of the NameSentry report [pdf] is “to benchmark the industry’s performance” on the registration of domain names used for abusive purposes – malware, phishing, fraud etc.

Using a range of different data sources, the report has broken the results out by top-level domain (TLD) and each is given a figure of abuse per million domains.

TLDs are put into four categories: Excellent, Good, Exercise Caution, and At Risk, as in “Surf at your own risk”. Half of all TLDs fitted into the “Good” category, with 15 percent Excellent, 14 percent Exercise Caution, and 10 percent (or seven top-level domains) listed as At Risk. read more